It's Not That I'm Jaded, but Love's Complicated
by morallyambiguous
Summary: In the back of the room, Dinah is assisting Artemis with her warm ups, pitch pipe calling out clear notes and Artemis's voice singing them back almost as clear. The bell on the door rings and Kaldur looks up. He just as quickly wishes that he hadn't.


**Category: **Young Justice

**Rating: **T

**Words: **1,058

**Characters: **Kaldur'ahm, Roy Harper, Artemis Crock, Bruce Wayne, M'gann M'orzz, Conner Kent, Bruce Wayne, Wally West

**Pairing: **Roy Harper/Kaldur'ahm

**Summary: **Roy visits Kaldur before a show to explain some things. Fists fly.

**A/N: **For fyeahlilbitoeverything 'cuz he requested it forever ago.

* * *

The mic is cracking again. Kaldur notes. He'll need to get the spare from his car. The piano is tuned and ready to go, now if only the rest of his band were as ready. He sighs, rolling his shoulders back, once, twice, and then a third time.

He's being unfair, they don't have to start warming up for another hour, and for once they're all here early.

He watches Conner haul in his drumset, a cumbersome task that can take anywhere from twenty to forty minutes, carefully placing the drums at the bottom of the steps.

Dick is up in their combination sound and lightbooth, as per usual, Kaldur will have to tell him about the mic, but right now he's just running lights.

Megan is going over some of their music at the last minute, always worried that she's going to mess up on stage despite the fact that she probably practices the most out of all of them. She replaces the reed in her clarinet with another and then another before finally settling on one from the bottom of her case. He's not entirely sure if that serves any purpose besides easing her nerves.

Wally's shining his saxophone, and if Kaldur didn't know better, he would think that Wally actually thought his precious instrument was actually dirty.

In the back of the room, Dinah is assisting Artemis with her warm ups, pitch pipe calling out clear notes and Artemis's voice singing them back almost as clear. The bell on the door rings and Kaldur looks up.

He just as quickly wishes that he hadn't.

"We're closed. Come back in a couple of hours." Bruce's voice is confrontational and Kaldur is reminded of how well he's treated them in the few months they've been playing there. It's comforting.

Roy Harper looks the owner straight in the eye. "I need to talk to Kaldur."

Though he doesn't deign to look up from where he's seated at the piano, currently pretending to look through his music, he can feel all of the eyes in the room turn to him. He catches Artemis in the corner of his eye. She nods her head towards Roy.

He knows that he moved out of her and Ollie's place a couple of months ago, and that they'd been friendly, but he also knows that if she had to choose between Roy and him, she would choose him in a heartbeat. He shakes his head 'yes' and she takes charge. God, he loves Artemis. He should send her chocolates or something.

"It's cool Bruce, you can let him in." Bruce looks skeptical, but really, Bruce always looks skeptical, and lets him in.

"Kaldur, can we talk?" Roy is walking towards him, and he is not ready for this, damn it! But he keeps his face relaxed and his voice calm.

"I do not think we have anything to talk about, Roy."

Roy flinches as if stung, but Kaldur ignores that. "Kal, please?"

He sighs. God, he's such a pushover. "Fine. Let us go around back." He looks up at Bruce, and knocks his head to the side. "Be back in 10."

The dressing room is open, so he pulls Roy in.

"What do you want, Roy? You made yourself clear this morning that you did not want to talk."

Roy places his hand on Kaldur's shoulder. He fights the urge to shrug it off. He is not a child, he is a bigger person than that, but oh, how satisfying it would be.

"I'm sorry Kaldur, I freaked. I shouldn't have..."

"You should not have what, Roy? You should not have slept with me? Is that what you are saying? Because at this point I'm inclined to agree with you."

"Kaldur, I'm sorry."

"That's nice, Roy, now if that's all you have to say, you can leave. I have a show to get ready for."

The edge of his shirt slips down as he brushes past Roy; he hears a sudden intake of breath. He turns his head, wanting to see what his (he can't believe that he still considers him this, but Kaldur is nothing if not loyal) friend is looking at. There's a dark bruise at the base of his neck, a bruise Roy made.

"Kaldur, please..."

He wishes he had hair to actually run his fingers through, because he doesn't know what Roy wants. He obviously doesn't want Kaldur. Generally leaving before your partner wakes up is a good sign of that.

"Roy. What do you want? It is not me, I know that much."

Roy's eyes are wide. "Kaldur, what? No? That's not, I mean, no, where did you even? I mean, what?" Roy's stumbling over his words now and this is a completely new experience for Kaldur. "Of course I want you, I'd be an idiot not to."

And now Kaldur is the one who's shocked.

"Then why did you leave?"

"Kaldur, in case you haven't noticed, you're so far out of my league that it's not even funny. I didn't want to drag you down with me."

Kaldur doesn't even think. He pulls his fist back and lets it fly.

Straight into Roy's jaw.

"You are a complete idiot, and you owe me dinner and a movie. Now go put some ice on that."

He storms across the room and stops at the door. He's an interesting mix of furious and elated and it's kind of throwing him off-balance.

"And if you ever pull anything like that again, I will kill you and they will never find your body."

He hears Roy's gulp behind him.

The door handle is pulled from his hand. M'gann, Conner, Wally, Dick, and Artemis are all breathing heavily, looking ready for a fight.

"We heard a crash, is everything alright?"

"Roy needs an icepack. But we're fine. Now get back to rehearsal. We have a show in an hour."

They file out of the room, looking remarkably similar to errant children. Artemis stays behind.

"Are we good?"

He smiles, for the first time that day. "Yeah, I think we are."

"Ow." And normally Kaldur would feel bad about hitting Roy, and he's never going to lay a hand on him again, but he deserved it.

"Shut up, Roy." Beside him, Artemis laughs.

He should really get to work on sending her chocolate.


End file.
